by Tyler, Anne
Chapter VII
Old Mr. Slattery died in the spring. He died exactly as he would have liked, sitting on his fishing stool and leaning back against a tree. Many people must have passed him by that afternoon thinking he was asleep. Miss Purcell’s back was like a ramrod at the funeral mass. Her little wine-colored hat was replaced by a precisely similar one in black, and her disapproving face was set in harder lines than ever.
Fergus had felt achingly sorry for her.
She had mothered and bossed and bullied the old man for years. In return she had received a courteous fearful attention from him. What would she find as a replacement? He was very swift to tell her that he wanted no change in the situation.
“Oh indeed, and then when you up and marry, Master Fergus, when I’m an old woman, what will happen to me then?”
“I don’t think I’ll up and marry, I’m nearly thirty, and anyway if I do, won’t she be a lucky woman to get the both of us?” He didn’t say that Miss Purcell was an old woman already.
Fergus had one sister, Rosemary, married and living in Manchester. She came home for the funeral but she and he were like strangers. Rosemary was ten years older, she had been headstrong, he believed, and impatient. There had been rows, he remembered, when he was only six or seven and then she had left home. It had been made up of course but only in a fashion. Not properly. Letters at Christmas and cards on birthdays. No visits, no phone calls. There had been no rows with her little brother, but somehow Fergus hadn’t expected his sister to come home. She came without her husband James, and without her sons. There was little mention of her family during the preparations for the funeral. She wore smart black and smoked the moment they were outside the church. Miss Purcell, who had been with the family at the time she left, hated her and barely disguised it.
“Back for the money,” she hissed at Fergus, who only laughed. There was very little money, he had read his father’s will. A legacy for Miss Purcell, a couple of hundred pounds to the church for masses, a small insurance policy whose small proceeds went to his grandsons in Manchester. There was nothing for the long-gone Rosemary. She would know that too. The business and the house were for Fergus. There was a touching personal note of gratitude that the young man had come back to Mountfern to keep the business going. Fergus had blinked a bit over that, he hadn’t known how much his father had appreciated it. Rosemary sat and drank a whiskey with him; the conversation was brittle. He had the feeling that this was the last time he would ever see her, and he was determined for both their sakes that he would be pleasant and allow no recriminations to come into the conversation.
“Does it seem strange to be back home again?” he asked her.
She shrugged. “It’s not home to me, never was really.”
He hid his irritation. “I know. I forget. Well, people were glad to see you again.”
“Did you think so? I think most of them had forgotten I ever existed. Real country bumpkins most of them.”
“I suppose they must seem that way to you.”
“And to you?”
“Oh I’m jes’ an ole country bumpkin myself … like to sit in me ole rockin’ chair and talk about the times gone by.” He smiled at her, expecting some kind of an answering laugh.
Rosemary frowned at him. “You’re turning into an old man, Fergus. It’s a fact. You walk in small steps as if you were wearing slippers, and a sweater …”
Fergus felt the smile die on his face. He had been playacting to entertain her.
“Good Lord, I must watch that,” he said, deliberately taking giant steps across the room “Is that any better?” He took her glass to refill it and strode across the room as if he were playing grandmother’s footsteps. This time it worked. She laughed at him affectionately.
“You’re much too smart for here, Fergus. This is a dead-end town. Quit while you can, get to Dublin, even if you haven’t the guts to sell up entirely. Drop it before it’s too late and you turn into a vegetable or an alcoholic, or both.”
He didn’t comment on the fact that it was she who had had three whiskies while he had not finished his first.
“And what would I do that would be so exciting in … say Manchester?” he asked, hoping he kept the sarcasm out of his voice.
“You’d meet real people, not just the butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker. You’d find someone for yourself, instead of having to be like a eunuch here.”
“Is that what they say I am?” He was very angry indeed. But there must be no more screaming matches with Rosemary in this house. History must not repeat itself.
“It’s what I can see you are,” she said, her eyes too bright, her hair slipping from the coil at the back of her neck. “What else could you be in a place like this, making sheep’s eyes at that woman from the pub who does your typing? And never doing a thing about it.”
“Sorry, Rosemary, hold on a minute, I’ve got to get us more water,” he said.
He went into the kitchen and filled the jug, which he gripped with both hands to the sink until his knuckles were thin and white. How dare she speak of Kate like that? He would like to have hit her across the side of her silly drunken head. But it was a matter of hours. They would talk for another short while, then tomorrow she would have breakfast and he would drive her to the train in the big town. He would offer her something from the house as a souvenir. He had been going to suggest an old Victorian sewing box that had belonged to their mother. But, God damn it, no. It was too good for her, and Rosemary didn’t look like anyone who would ever sew. Just keep the peace for a few more hours. That wasn’t a weak thing to do, surely; it was a strong thing. He came back in smiling.
“Sorry, I was waiting for it to run cold. Where were we? I was making sheep’s eyes at Kate Ryan. Who would I be making sheep’s eyes at in Manchester?”
“I didn’t say you were to come to Manchester.” She sounded sulky now.
“But I will someday, surely. Not to work but to visit. I’d love to see my nephews. They must have nearly left school by now. Tell me about them.”
He settled himself in his chair, his smile of interest and concern masking his rage.
“They’ve left,” she said gruffly.
“Surely not? Hugh can only be barely sixteen?”
“Headstrong, impatient, won’t wait, won’t get an education.” She looked into the fire.
“And what does James say about it?”
“He’s hardly ever there to say anything. He’s not around much.”
Rosemary still looked into the fire.
Fergus poured them both a last drink, and moved to less troubled waters. He suggested that Rosemary take a silver cigarette box back with her as a memento. Awkwardly she accepted it, and before she went to bed she gave him what passed for a kiss on the cheek. A sort of lunge.
“You’re not the worst, Fergus, even though you’re a bit of an eejit,” she said, and her tones were those of love and praise, inasmuch as she could give either.
He lay awake for a long time and wondered about sheep’s eyes. What way did one sheep look at another that the world regarded as foolish?
Eddie Ryan asked Mr. Williams the vicar if he could become a Protestant and be accepted into the Church of Ireland faith. Mr. Williams listened to him gravely and said it was a very big step and perhaps he should think more about it, maybe even discuss it with his priest or his parents. Mr. Williams was a kind man; never for a moment did he betray his knowledge of Eddie’s latest deed, which involved breaking the little shutter in the confessional, something that had never been done since the church was built and had hardly ever been done in Christendom according to Canon Moran and Father Hogan. Eddie explained that the church was empty at the time, and he wondered what it felt like to sit where the priest did, pushing the shutters back and forth to listen to the penitents. He got a bit excited and kept whizzing them to see which one would close quickest, and that was when one came away from its moorings entirely.
Jimbo Doyle had to be summoned, an
d it was all very serious and high level. Canon Moran said he couldn’t believe that the child would say the church was empty. Wasn’t our Blessed Lord in the church in the tabernacle, watching Eddie Ryan desecrate church property and disassemble the place where the holy sacrament of penance took place?
Father Hogan kept saying, “What Cromwell left undone Eddie Ryan will finish,” and pretending to panic when he saw him coming near the church.
It would be easier for him to be a Protestant.
“I have thought about it,” he assured Mr. Williams. “I’m dead certain. Would I need an admission card to start coming here on Sunday?”
“Of course not, Eddie, but …”
“And if there’s any questions, trouble like, you’ll tell them I asked to join. That it’s all above board. If they come hounding me?”
“Who would come hounding you, Eddie?”
“Almost everyone in the place, Mr. Williams, you wouldn’t credit it. My mother said if she set eyes on me again today she wouldn’t be responsible for what she’d do. Sergeant Sheehan said he has a room in the barracks with a lock on it and he’s thinking of putting my name on it because it’s where I’ll end up. I couldn’t tell you what the priests are like, because we’re all meant to be … whatever it’s called these days, you know loving all other religions … so it wouldn’t do you any good to know what they’re like down at the presbytery just now.”
“Life can be very difficult.” Mr. Williams was trying hard not to smile.
“You wouldn’t know the half of it up here, with no flock so to speak of, and pots of money.”
The impoverished Mr. Williams listened to this wryly.
“I don’t have all that much, Eddie.”
“I bet you have four pounds though,” Eddie said.
“Well, I do, but I need it. I can’t give it to you, no matter how great your need.”
“No, my need isn’t great. If I join your church I won’t have to pay it.”
“How, exactly?”
“I can say I’m a different faith, a different crowd altogether. I can’t be responsible for some sum of money they say I owe in the last faith. For repairs. I’d never make four pounds. Never.”
Mr. Williams was very kind. He could see that Eddie Ryan was not trying to put a touch on him; the sum was too huge to be possible even for the wildly optimistic.
“Why don’t you weed a few graves for me, Eddie, tidy up the graveyard. I could pay you say, five shillings. If you did a good job, then after several five-shilling days you could return to your old faith and pay your debts, and everyone would be happier.”
“I thought you were supposed to be looking for converts, and snatching people away from the true faith.”
“Oh no, we don’t do much snatching here, more patting people down; that’s what it seems to be about these days. Will I give you a sack for the grass and the weeds?”
Dara and Grace were in the graveyard looking after James Edward Gray. They had brought cowslips and primroses and had made an unsuccessful attempt to remove some of the moss and lichen from his stone with Vim. It had looked much better before their efforts, they realized. Maggie had been a bit funny about James Edward Gray, claiming that she found him and she was the one to look after him. Grace and Dara had agreed and gone to look for someone else who was pretty neglected. But Maggie had come after them in tears and said they could have James Edward Gray and keep him, she didn’t care. Then she had stormed off home. She had been a bit like that lately, maybe it was trouble at home.
Maggie’s elder sister Kitty was a bit bossy, and she had two sisters who were nursing in Wales. They could have lost their religion or not written home, or something. Mrs. Daly was an awful one for doing the right thing and the trimmings on the Dalys’ rosary at night were as long as the rosary itself. Maggie must be getting some kind of trouble from her mother. That could be the only explanation of why she was so touchy these days.
Tommy Leonard came to collect Michael.
“There’s no fish. What’s the point?” Michael said.
“There’s often no fish. As far as I’m concerned there’s nearly always no fish. What are you after, some kind of record catch?”
Tommy was indignant. He had spent half an hour explaining to his father why a boy of thirteen should be allowed to go and fish with his friend, and now Michael didn’t want to come.
“It’s pointless, can’t see any reason to drag all that stuff miles up the bank and miles back,” Michael said.
“Lovely! When did this happen, this road to Damascus? Just when I was assuring my father that there was no better, healthier way of spending the afternoon.”
“I don’t know,” Michael said.
“Listen Michael, you are a pain, and a big pain. What is it? Why was fishing what we did yesterday, and suddenly today it’s what we don’t do? I don’t mind, I just want to know.”
Michael punched Tommy to show that there was no personal ill-will involved.
“You know the way it is sometimes. There seems no point in anything. Anything at all,” Michael said.
“Do I know how it is? Of course I know how it is. I feel that way most of the time. But why today? Now I’ll have to go on my own or go back to the shop and say to my father he was right, I am a selfish pleasure-seeking lout …”
“Oh all right, I’ll come with you.”
“What about Dara and Grace and the others? Where are they? Did they all give up fishing too, suddenly? Did everybody except me?” Tommy wondered.
“Oh, who knows where they are? The Whites have gone to Dublin with their mother for the day; Dara and Grace are giggling somewhere, you can be sure of that.”
“Where’s Maggie?”
“I don’t know. I think she’s as angry with all this giggling as we are. Come on then Tommy, if we’re going to spend the day getting pneumonia for no fish, let’s go and catch it.”
“The sun is shining, you clown,” Tommy said.
The sun had come out and Miss Hayes was planting some pansies that Kate Ryan had given her. Mrs. Ryan was very good about all kinds of flowers and Miss Hayes had heard some disparaging remarks that Judy Byrne had made about the appearance of the gate lodge of the Grange. Miss Hayes was feeling personally slighted. She had called at Ryan’s merely for advice. Mrs. Ryan had given her the pansies and gotten her a lift back too from a passing customer. It was too far to walk in the sun, she had said.
Olive Hayes watered them well in, just as she had been advised. She would make a macaroni and cheese for the tea, that little Ryan girl was coming this evening. She and Grace O’Neill were very thick with each other. They never stopped talking and laughing. It would do your heart good to see them.
Grace and Dara left the graveyard hastily when they saw Eddie being instructed in the details of grave-tending.
“It’s more than flesh and blood could bear, we’ll have to leave,” Dara said as soon as she saw her small brother.
“He’s not that bad,” Grace laughed.
“You don’t know how bad he is, he’ll probably dig up half the bodies in the graveyard. We’re well out of it before he gets at it.”
They scrambled to the wall where they had left their bicycles.
“We’ll walk home through Coyne’s wood. That way we won’t get drawn into the fishing,” Dara said.
“Yes, sure. Or else we could just say that we’re not going fishing today.” Everything was simple to Grace.
They wheeled their bikes through the woods which looked beautiful in the Easter sunshine. They heard pigeons and cuckoos, and small rabbits ran across their path as they walked.
“It’s like fairyland here,” Grace said happily.
“Is your father glad he came?” Dara asked.
“Oh yes, of course he is. Why?”
“He was in our pub the other night. I thought he looked kind of tired and upset.”
“He gets upset over Kerry. Remember at Christmas I was telling you; and there’s been something on his mind
at the moment. I don’t know what it is, he won’t tell me. That means it’s either about Kerry or about women.”
“Women?” Dara’s eyes were round.
“Yes, women falling in love with him. You know, I told you yucky Marian Johnson has.”
“Oh yes, but you wouldn’t mind that,” Dara dismissed Marian.
“And I think Miss Byrne, you know, the chiropractor.”
“Physio.”
“Yes, whatever. And there’s this woman in America.” Grace looked troubled.
“Lord he does collect them,” Dara said in mystification.
“I know, he’s very old and everything, but he’s very nice,” Grace said defensively. “And rich of course,” she added, in order to be strictly fair.
“Who’s the woman in America?”
“A Mrs. Fine.”
“Do you think it’s serious? Isn’t she married to someone else, if she’s a missus?”
“No, he’s dead or separated. There’s no Mister Fine around.”
“Do you like her?”
“She’s OK. I don’t want Father to marry anyone else. That’s all.”
“I know, but maybe he’s not going to. Wouldn’t she be here or he be over there if they were getting married? After all they’re pretty old. They wouldn’t want to be wasting time.”
“He calls her a lot. He called her twice on Christmas Day.”
“Oh that means nothing. Mrs. Whelan says people are always telephoning each other on Christmas Day and putting the heart across everyone else.”
“I don’t know.” Grace was doubtful. “I had this friend in the States, Brigid Anne Moriarty. Well, she told me that her mother said Father was going to marry again, that everybody knew it, that he had a lady friend he worked with, and that they were going to get married quietly in New York.”
“How did Brigid Anne know all this, and you and Kerry didn’t?”
“Who would tell us? Anyway I told Kerry this on the day of mother’s funeral.”
“You mean Brigid Anne knew your father had a lady friend before your mother died?” Dara’s face was horrified.
“But you see it wasn’t true; obviously it wasn’t. It was only a tale people told because Father was so well known among all these people, and because Mother was an invalid for so long.”